Micro-blogging site Twitter is hosting is the latest social media platform to combine shopping and livestreaming. The company is hosting its first shopping livestream on 28 November at 7 PM ET (5:30 AM IST) where Twitter is collaborating with Walmart. The “Cyber Deals Sunday” livestream will take place during the post-Thanksgiving weekend, which is traditionally associated with huge offers all around.
Twitter says the livestream will be hosted by singer Jason Derulo as a “30-minute variety show” that will feature “electronics, home goods, apparel, seasonal decor, surprise special guests, and more.”
Twitter’s live shopping interface, according to the images shared by the company shows a split between a video livestream, an online catalogue, and a feed of tweets. Image: Twitter
Twitter is the latest to venture into the shopping and livestream trending. Before this, Meta had announced a test of a “Live Shopping for creators” feature for Facebook and Pinterest debuted a live shopping series called “Pinterest TV,” and YouTube also expanded its live-shopping feature with a week-long shopping event called YouTube Holiday Stream and Shop.
Livestream shopping is a new trend that many tech companies are taking up. This has had a certain hold in China, where Gen Z customers are increasingly shifting away from traditional e-commerce retailers towards making purchases via social media.
Twitter’s live shopping interface, according to the images shared by the company shows a split between a video livestream, an online catalogue, and a feed of tweets. The stream will continue playing in a picture-in-picture mode if you follow a link to a seller’s website. Twitter said that the shopping elements will initially only come to iOS and desktop. Android users, on the other hand, will be able to watch the steam live but won’t get to engage with the shopping features.
The Twitter-Walmart stream on 28 November is being touted as a “test.” The company was quoted in a report from The Verge as saying that it only plans for brands to be able to host shopping livestreams for now, and not regular Twitter users.
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